Gomtolpios: School principal gobbles up students' leftovers to discourage food waste

A private school principal in China has made headlines for carrying out a peculiar method of preventing food waste – eating his students' leftovers.

The man named Wang Yongxin – who's in charge of a secondary school in the city of Qiyang, Hunan – recently became a viral sensation after footage emerged of him standing nearby the school cafeteria's waste bins with chopsticks in hand.

As students approached the area with their unfinished food, the daring principal would take their plates and trays from them before proceeding to scarf down the leftovers using his chopsticks.

A screenshot from the news video showing Wang eating a student's leftovers. IMAGE: TVBS 優選頻道 on YouTube

While some of the students would stand by and watch as Wang ate their unfinished meals, others opted to save their teacher the trouble and finish up the food themselves.

Leading by example, he says.

Explaining his stunt, the voracious principal told news outlets that he did what he did to set a precedent in his school that food wasn't to be wasted under any circumstances.

"I want to set an example for the kids, letting them know that it's wrong to waste food," he said. "My behavior has not only surprised the children, but also teachers."

Wang also mentioned that by eating his students' leftovers, he's also managed to get the equivalent of three meals per day. But more importantly, he's also managed to convince many of his students to take no more than the amount of food they think they can finish.

"Some children finished their food when they saw me eating their classmates' leftovers," he explained. "Now some of them voluntarily tell the staff how much food they need, which helps reduce waste."

IMAGE: BusinessMirror

Wang's bizarre move comes shortly after the Chinese government passed a law earlier this year that would penalize restaurants and patrons who created excessive waste from food leftovers.

Additionally, the country has also completely outlawed binge-eating content on livestreaming platforms following the government's admission of a very real food waste problem.

In April, it was reported that restaurants in China's cities were putting out between 17 to 18 million tons of wasted food per year, which would be enough to feed between 30 to 50 million people, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Another estimate said that if unstopped, China's food waste problems could eventually see the country come to terms with a food shortage problem of around 130 million tons by 2025, thanks to the shrinking of the farming sector.

This isn't the way to do it.

Of course, the principal's stunt – while well-intentioned – hasn't come without criticism from the public, from whom many have slammed the educator's actions as compromising hygiene in favor of sending a message.

"It's good to be frugal, but eating others' leftovers is a bad example for epidemic control," a commenter on Chinese social media site Weibo said. "Maybe they should think of other ways to educate students."

"It seems the Chinese people's concept of hygiene needs to be improved! Even this principal neglects hygiene so much," another commenter on YouTube said. "No surprise that China often has plagues."

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Defiantly, Wang responded to the criticisms by simply explaining that it wasn't really a problem considering all the food was contained to one central location.

"It's all from the same kitchen," he said. "All the students and teachers eat here. I regard the kids as my own, so there's no boundary in my mind."

As noble as his motivations may be, we're not so keen on the logic he employs to back up his stunt, especially with a global pandemic in full swing. Hopefully, it'll eventually get through to the students, and convince them to stop taking too much food in the first place.

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